Bobby Jindal: Ignorance is Strength

THERE HASN’T been such an ambitious, articulate windbag who appealed to the most ignorant among us since William Jennings Bryan.

Bobby Jindal, the anti-science, anti-evolution, creationism-friendly governor of Louisiana, continues to generate press attention as he schemes and panders his way to higher office. We find ourselves fascinated by this intellectual shipwreck, a man of boundless political appetite and infinitesimal integrity, a biology major at Brown University who became a creationist because it was politically expedient. We watch his reach for political power much as we watch the weather reports of an approaching hurricane — knowing that if it comes our way it will be bad. Very bad.

If Gov. Bobby Jindal is puzzled about why educated Louisiana citizens are leaving by the thousands, he should look in the mirror.

Louisiana’s problems did not begin with Jindal, but when he had the opportunity to make Louisiana a better place for educated, talented people to live as workers, parents and citizens, he chose instead to cater to the farthest reaches of his Religious Right base.

Dr. Forrest’s accurate, fact-filled letter appeared in The Advocate, published in Baton Rouge and primarily circulated in Louisiana. On a wider stage, Jindal’s publicity is more flattering. At least for now.

Those who usually favor the other political party would undoubtedly want an unprincipled nullity like Jindal to be his party’s choice, presumably because it will be easy to defeat him when the time is right. Thus, in the Washington Post, we read GOP Looks to Louisiana’s Governor. Excerpts, with bold added by us:

Like the president-elect, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is young (37), accomplished (a Rhodes scholar) and, as the son of Indian immigrants, someone familiar with breaking racial and cultural barriers.

A lot of good his education has done him — or the people of Louisiana. Anyone who could graduate as a major in biology and then turn around and sign a travesty like the misleadingly named “Louisiana Science Education Act” is unfit for … well, just about everything.

More from the Washington Post, as they build Jindal up so they can destroy him later:

No less an aspiring kingmaker than Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist of McCain’s failed presidential bid, sees Jindal as the Republican Party’s destiny. “The question is not whether he’ll be president, but when he’ll be president, because he will be elected someday.” The anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist believes, too, that Jindal is a certainty to occupy the White House, and conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh has described him as “the next Ronald Reagan.”

If Jindal is the next Ronald Regan, then Arnold Schwarzenegger is the next Ingrid Bergman.

Here’s a little more from the Washington Post — observe how they mention Jindal’s disservice to science, an appeal to the most ignorant segments of the population — his natural base — as an advantage:

The record is still evolving, like the rest of him. But social conservatives like what they have heard about the public and private Jindal: his steadfast opposition to abortion without exceptions; his disapproval of embryonic stem cell research; his and his wife Supriya’s decision in 1997 to enter into a Louisiana covenant marriage that prohibits no-fault divorce in the state; and his decision in June to sign into law the Louisiana Science Education Act, a bill heartily supported by creationists that permits public school teachers to educate students about both the theory of “scientific design” and criticisms of Darwinian evolutionary concepts.

If those positions are the key to political office in America, then the outhouse is the key feature of Monticello.

3 responses to “Bobby Jindal: Ignorance is Strength”

Journalist/historian Dave MacPherson has discovered something about evolution that has escaped everyone else. Remember those charts in biology textbooks showing the “stages” of mankind? The first “stage” shows a naked, hairy, bent-over caveman which evolves through the ages until the final stage is a standing-erect man with a short, 1930’s-style haircut. Well, MacPherson found out that someone accidentally reversed that chart! He says that the first “stage” eons ago looked like the guy with the 1930’s-style appearance, and that things have really gone downhill over the centuries. So what does the last “stage” look like? MacPherson answers by saying, “Has anyone been to a rock concert lately?”
Norlou